The Shan-Shui Initiative is China’s major program for the integrated protection and restoration of mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasslands and deserts. Since 2016, 52 major projects have been implemented, and the initiative was selected as one of the first 10 World Restoration Flagships.
China’s Shan-Shui Initiative has been followed by clear vegetation greening in many early project areas, while broader satellite-observed ecological conditions show more varied regional responses, according to a new study.
Large ecological restoration programs have often been evaluated first by whether they make landscapes greener. However, vegetation greenness alone may not fully capture changes over time in moisture conditions, heat-related stress, land use, and regional ecological settings.
The study, published in Science China Earth Sciences, assessed 25 Shan-Shui Initiatives that were among the first to be implemented between 2016 and 2018. Using long-term remote sensing and climate data from 2011 to 2024, the researchers analyzed changes in vegetation greenness, the integrated remote-sensing ecological index, land-use patterns, and climate-related responses after project implementation.
The team used an improved Remote Sensing Ecological Index, or kRSEI, to integrate several satellite-derived indicators, including greenness, wetness, dryness and heat. In this study, the index was used to characterize changes in regional ecological conditions observed from space.
The analysis found that vegetation greenness increased significantly in 14 of the 25 project areas. However, changes in kRSEI were not always synchronized with greenness. This indicates that vegetation recovery and broader satellite-observed ecological conditions do not necessarily change in the same way.
To interpret these regional differences, the researchers referred to China’s “Three Eco-zones and Four Shelterbelts” framework, a national ecological security pattern that reflects broad ecological functions and geographic settings. In areas where both vegetation greenness and kRSEI increased, forests, grasslands, and croplands showed distinct roles across different ecological contexts.
In areas where both vegetation greenness and kRSEI increased, different landscape settings showed different dominant responses. Forests were more prominent in humid regions with strong forest backgrounds. Grasslands played a larger role in arid and semi-arid regions, where water limitation and vegetation cover are central restoration concerns. Agricultural land also contributed in regions with intensive human activity, suggesting that restoration outcomes in managed landscapes may depend not only on natural vegetation recovery, but also on farmland management, soil and water conservation, and land-use adjustment.
The researchers also examined how kRSEI was related to climate-environmental factors, including temperature, precipitation, drought conditions and soil moisture. Soil moisture was closely associated with changes in the remote-sensing-based index, suggesting that water availability and water retention may be important for maintaining restoration outcomes under climate variability.
“Vegetation greenness is an important signal, but it should not be the only basis for evaluating restoration outcomes,” said Yanjun Shen, first author of the paper and director of the Key Laboratory of Ecological Geology and Disaster Prevention, Ministry of Natural Resources. “By integrating multiple satellite-derived indicators, this study provides a comparable framework for examining how ecological conditions changed over time across different project areas.”
The authors suggest that future assessment of large ecological restoration programs should consider vegetation greenness together with moisture conditions, heat-related stress, land-use changes and regional ecological settings. Such an approach may support more targeted restoration planning and climate-adaptive project design.
See the article:
Shen Y, Zhang S, Yuan Y, Wang B, Liu T, Li Y, Peng J. 2026. Restoration effects of China’s Shan-Shui Initiative: Quantitative assessment based on the improved Remote Sensing Ecological Index (kRSEI). Science China Earth Sciences, 69(7): 2586–2601, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-025-1955-1.
Science China Earth Sciences
Data/statistical analysis